


Level Me

by LostInQueue



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, World of Warcraft
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, DPS, F/M, Gaming, Gen, Guilds, Healers, Hunter - Freeform, MMORPG, Mage, Modern AU, Range, Tanks, World of Warcraft - Freeform, Wow, demon hunter - Freeform, kiting, melee class, rogue - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-26 23:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17755250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInQueue/pseuds/LostInQueue





	1. Chapter 1

Rey works for Rebel’s Resort, which to her, chalked up to be her best shot at a nine to five job that didn’t have her serving coffee or handling manual labor. It’s the best fit for now. Maybe forever? The pay is enough to live comfortably. She’s able to afford the food she actually wants to eat instead of what she needs to in order to make it by, which is a huge selling point to stay. 

Not to mention all of the other amenities such as having benefits, and healthcare. Oh, how she shrieked with joy seeing that printed on her first pay stub. It wasn’t like she needed it as bad as she did when she was growing up, but still, having it now is certainly better than never having it at all.

Her days at Rebel’s Resort changed with each passing season. She would decorate the lobby as she saw fit, making sure it is always done professionally. The last thing she needed was to offend any religions by putting out too much of one thing. 

Instead she would focus on nature’s natural beauty, bringing in branches of evergreens and pine cones. She would search Pinterest for ways to knot branches, because fifteen dollars a ball at the local hobby shop seemed to be way too inflated for a stick. 

Her co-workers would always seem to find what she was looking for faster than she could. They were experienced, however, being there far longer than she has. 

Finn works primarily in the kitchen, where she’s rarely been, while Rose hangs out with her at the front desk. The two are responsible for checking guests in and out, making sure they can assist with informational knowledge of what’s in the area and great sales in town. They help with the seasonal decor at the desk, in the windows and sitting areas in the lobby...but for the most part it is the slowest possible job she’s ever had. 

Rose is fun to talk to but it isn’t until Finn brings up leveling his character to Rose at work that has her gears going.

“Wait, do we even have the bandwidth to support MMO gaming in here?” Rey asks. 

“We’re not a small facility, Rey,” he replies.

“But—“

“Come on, I want to raid with you guys but I hate being a healer. Hate it. And you can’t blink without finding a DPS character. So tank is it for me. At least then we can take two raids instead of one.” Finn makes a good point. 

Their raids were fine until everyone, including Finn, rolled an alternate character. It really sort of killed the guild they came from. Supremacy was fine until the guild leader started promoting his real life douche—friends to officer status and class role positions, like they had any idea how to run their own classes. It was bullshit really. 

Rey was kicked for rolling for gear against an officer and that was it for her. All of her gear was obtained running with the higher leveled guilds. She made herself available to them whenever, including on Tuesdays with one of her favorites Darksaber Raiders. They made the offer so many times to make her a member, it really is the offer of a lifetime for an online gamer to even be seen with them, let alone raid with them, but she declined each time, saying they could contact her any time to play. 

Her main is a troll hunter, being one since well before all of the expansions came through. It’s not like she didn’t try the other ones but the Bloodelves ran weird. She remembered cursing at it and wondering who ran like that in battle... she answers her own questions just as sarcastically as she thought them. “Yes..if I am being chased by demons, I am definitely going to run like I have a coin in my cheeks. Yes. Makes total sense.”

“Hey, I’m DPS,” whines Rey. 

“No...you’re not DPS. You’re the game changer. You just have to log in and the instance gives up.”

Rose snorts, “Yeah, I’m sure it just shits out loot, too.” 

Rose wouldn’t know though. She’s the guild farmer and auction house manipulator, naming all of her characters: Bankhoone, Bankhotwo, and so on. Rose loves her professions and being practically the one woman show, in terms of crafting crap.

“If you would raid with us, you’d know,” Finn confirms. “We don’t even need a tank. Her pet does everything!”

“Still have the bear?” Rose asks.

“No, I’ve moved on.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I finally got that blue tiger.”

“From vanilla WoW?” Rose asks. “Why would you want that? And cats don’t tank. Just like Druid cat form doesn’t tank either.” 

“For a bank ho, you seem to know your classes pretty well,” snorts Rey. 

“I can’t exactly get away from it entirely—what with placing plans in chests now. It’s absolutely ridiculous that I have had to actually go play with other people to get those things,” she complains.

“I don’t understand why you don’t just get into my guild. People would run you,” Finn starts on his kick to get his friends to join up with his. 

“First off, it isn’t yours,” corrects Rose. “And secondly, I don’t need to play with that turd blossom of a tool, KyloBSolo. That guy is a dick.”

“Rose,” Rey hushes her friend. Rose always had quite the timing and volume when it came to her vulgar word choices. Just then a family came to check in, both parents carrying two children, and their bedding. Rey’s seen a lot come in and out of the lobby, but a guest’s own bedding was surely a first for her. 

Although, being there as long as she has, Rey knew not to say anything. The resort only housed queen and king sized beds, not two twins, and if they didn’t know from when they booked the place, it was on them. It wasn’t like she would have to call the manager on this one just to buy two twin beds for some room that didn’t require it, just because she felt the need to correct what they were brining. It’s not every day you see a toddler clutching his plane printed fitted sheets. Whatever the case, she knew not to get involved. 

By the time they left, Finn was back to explaining his thoughts on Rey leveling his warrior. “You know what you’re doing... can you just do this for me?”

Rey gives it a thought. The worst things that can happen during her night shifts are that she kills the bandwidth and lags out, or has to shut the laptop abruptly as guests find they need her assistance. If she’s being honest with herself, night shift is really hours of searching Pinterest for anything she can make out of paper. 

“Oh, all right,” Rey agrees to it. “But I need your laptop.” Rey pauses taking in the sight of Finn’s excitement. “And, I’ll need your gaming mouse. And don’t expect much because we really don’t know if this internet is choppy or not.”

“Great!” Finn pulls out his keys. “I’ll go get it now.” Finn hops in place in excitement and apparently travels with his laptop or was expecting her to allow this.

The laptop is freezing cold, which cold is fine, but freezing is less so. The girls watch Finn sit in the lobby, hugging the laptop against his chest, hoping it’ll warm up. 

Not knowing what else to talk about, Rey tries to strike up the conversation about his class specifics and where he’s been leveling. 

“Desolace right now,” he winces when he says it. 

“You’re in your thirties?!” Rey groans. “Please tell me you have a heirloom set and get thirty percent extra experience...”

“That, and I have both trinkets that keep the XP in rest mode.”

Rey nods. “Do you have any scrolls and enchants you can send me, Rose?”

Rose pulls up her phone’s app to send scrolls, enchants and cut gems for sockets she knows she’ll be replacing as she gets better gear. 

Rey asks as she’s loading, “What’s your warrior’s name?” 

Finn grins when she is greeted by his aviator. “Healmyaz? That’s the name you picked?”

“It wouldn’t let me do ‘Healmyass’ or ‘Healmebitch’.”

Rey covers her face with her hand having to accept playing this character with this obnoxious name.


	2. Rey’s Reputation

Logging with Healmyaz makes her groan is displeasure. Not only is it a male orc, he picked the baby puke green. She guesses she can’t complain that much. He could have picked a Tauren, and those were the biggest characters on the Horde. 

Her sigh is only amplified when she sees the Supremacy’s guild chat running in the bottom of the window. Uninterested in them, she turns off his guild tab and focuses her next few hours into leveling this character. 

At forty he gets a faster boost on his mounts. Finn never really collected mounts on his main. Of the ones he had were all of the wolf mounts that drive her nuts. That lazy left paw really needed the code updated. She’s pretty sure dogs don’t run with a limp. 

Then there were raptors. Even her hunter’s raptor was irritating. It was like watching a carousel horse jump up and down on the screen as it ran. Kodo’s were no different on the dumb train. She was sure Blizzard could do better, but decided against it. In fact all of the Horde’s mounts were frustrating to her, but she’d be damned if she switched Finn’s factions for a tiger mount. Her character had the orange tiger from Zul’Gurub from years ago—but it didn’t help Healmyaz speed up through the map to drop off his quests. 

As she unloaded quest items in town, some character starts following him around. It’s a mage. A little low for the area by ten levels, which meant everything he saw had its name highlighted in red, and a skull in the circle where the number should be.

Instead of striking up a question with the needy character, she set up her DND mode hoping the little xp sucker would take the hint and find somewhere else to play. Not with her. She did not need to be weighed down by anyone. 

Pink text appears in the empty chat window asking for party. Rey rolls her eyes assuming it’s a farmer, and hits the dance emote. She lets Healmyaz go through the moves before pulling out the motorcycle mount Rose made for Finn’s healer, and drives away. 

The character looked so sad standing there. Maybe it was the fact that the undead always had this sappy, ‘feel-bad-for-me” type thing going on, but she felt obliged to at least respond to the noob. 

/r pulled up the last name she talked to KyloBSolo. Rey rolls her eyes knowing she did not consider talking to anyone besides gimpy over there. As she tabs through, she finds the kid’s name: Finalizer. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” Rey whispers at the screen. The mage is thirty. He’s not finalizing anything but himself. It’ll be a wonder if he even makes it to thirty one the way he’s blinking into shit. It’s a bad idea. She tries not to think about the character but types out the little skelly’s name anyway.

/t Finalizer: Yo

Yo? Rey thinks. Would Finn say, “Yo?” She shakes her head, of course he wouldn’t. But the last thing she needed was some teenage leech following her around. Rey waits back in town for the guy to respond. It takes him just over fifteen minutes to get back to her, but she’s since left. No way she was waiting around for Mr. Nooberizer all night. Oh, that was it. If she had to talk to him that would be his name. 

Speak of the devil.

Finalizer: Want to group?

Rey rolls her eyes, labeling him again as a leech.

Healmyaz: No.

Finalizer: Why?

Healmyaz: You’re ten levels too small for this zone. 

Finalizer: You haven’t grouped with a mage yet then, have you?

Healmyaz: Full of yourself, are you?

Finalizer: ...

Rey can’t help but imagine a thirteen year old goading her on with the three damned dots from hell. 

Healmyaz: It was a yes or no question.

Usually she’s more patient with noobs but there’s no time. She’s got to crank out a ton of levels before she goes with Ezra’s guild later tonight on her main. Ideally, she’d be on flying through her dailies and chatting with him already, but here she was dealing with this. 

Ezra, her online crush she nicknamed EZ, looked for her online. He likes that she is dedicated to one character, as he is. He figures maybe she’s at work which has him popping on discord. He knew she worked well into the night and usually would keep an eye out for his messages. It made him feel somewhat famous knowing her. It really is a strange concept to him since his guild is at the top of the raiding list. 

Darksaber Raiders has no pinch hitters in terms of players they relied on. They are made up of a tight knit group of friends who are always on. 

Ever since Ezra heard of this individual playing with the best of them, he had to know more. First he started with her character’s name, Clara, which is clearly feminine, giving way to him watching her from afar. Girls could be strange players. Some flaunted it, looking for handouts. Others wanted to be one of the guys and that could get too weird at times—he really didn’t need drama within their guild over some switch hitter either. So, he watched.

Rey ran with other guilds since leaving Supremacy. All increasingly more difficult to get into, until the one just beneath them on the world list, invited her to a raid, and gave her the shoulders that dropped. Gave it to her. Didn’t even expect her to join or anything! It was unheard of for some random to get gear from a prestigious guild like that. 

It was then, when Ezra knew they needed her.

When Rey started playing with them, she noticed and called him out on the fact that they all seem to have history with one another. 

If that didn’t open him up wider to her, he wasn’t sure what would. He’s one of four brothers who all play. Two of them got their wives to play, as healers no less. Ezra and his older brother, who named his character Kanan, play as warriors. The younger two, by only a year, named theirs Rex and Rxx, just to jack with Ezra for assignments. Both play as mages, and since one of the patches after cataclysm gave the ability to match gear skins, they’ve been confusing him relentlessly. Rex’s wife named hers Satine, who is a healer, and Kanan’s wife is too. Her character’s choice was Brisa at first which soon changed to Hera instead. The other three were their friends, who were less into the role playing names, which matched the rest of the servers, by way of being class appropriate or not all that inspired at all. Stabthis, is a rogue, she’s learned has the worst sense of humor. Rain is a Shaman... and Darksci is a warlock. 

Ezra notices she’s on discord and doesn’t think twice about striking up a conversation with her. 

Ezra: Hey! 

Clara: Hi Ez! 

Usually she goes on about her day and she’s already with him when he’s on flying above the mess the town’s have become. Ezra stopped wanting to be down there. People just sucked. It wasn’t that they, themselves, sucked— or so he wanted to believe, but when he is visible, people crowd around him wanting stuff from him. Good, gear, or free runs through top instances, which he’s refrained himself from telling them to go fuck off. 

Being the top of his game meant people have it out for him. He could fart the wrong way and some grown ass adult living in his mother’s basement would spare no second thought, and report him just to knock him off his tower. It’s the hard part of the player fame that no one sees. It’s why he never really lets anyone in. It’s why his ten man raids are exactly that. If they ever wanted to do twenty-five, they had nights that they raided with Rebel Fire which is who gave the shoulders to Rey after one run. It is actually her that links the two together. 

Sabine, the guild master of Rebel Fire is just as no nonsense as Ezra is, which is why Clara bonded them together so well. Sabine’s character is a Demon Hunter, the first to roll and cap out at top level in each expansion. Her original was a warlock and while she loved dotting everything in sight and laughing as they dropped at her feet, Demon hunter was a class that was made for her. She likes being able to bash everything, take a hit and keep going. Where as her warlock, the cloth wearer it was, could not. 

Her guild members are allowed one bank character and one alt. If they wanted to raid they did so with their main on Tuesday and Wednesday leaving every other day for alts, attuning them to instances, and raiding in the alt specific raiding group. Alts had to have the right gear level for raids before even being considered a candidate for the ten man that they participated in. 

When Rey met Sabine, she was looking for DPS due to a last minute situation with her own. Sabine put Clara through a half hour of questions, checked out her twitch, and watched other guilds responses to her in their own videos before even sending her an invite. 

Clara exceeded all expectations. The moment Sabine found out Ezra was running with her, the offer was made to combine. 

It’s been two months since then and no merge has happened. Though they do run the harder instances, Ezra believes that Sabine has been pumping the breaks because Clara still hasn’t joined a guild. 

Ezra: Are you in game? Or headed home?

He remembers the time. It takes her a little longer to respond and it’s fine. He’ll be back to check on her. She still had an hour before grouping.

Clara: Hey—Yes! I’m still at work. Getting ready to go here in ten minutes. I’ll see you on in like twenty?

Ezra is all too fast with his response.

Ezra: Okay, good. See you soon, doll. 

It’s too late to take that back now. Maybe he could say it was an emote he was working on. He groans at the fact that there’s no editing discord responses. Maybe she’d roll it off her shoulders like she did for everyone else. Yeah, that’s it. That’s what she’ll do.


	3. Chapter 3

Being home made playing so much easier, for obvious reasons. More room, no outfit malfunctions... Rey was ready to cut off the buttons on her sleeves if one more caught in the lip of the desk when she moved the mouse. She’s pretty sure that thing is there to catch pens from rolling off but tonight it caught her sleeve just one too many times for her to stay calm about. Rose caught her cursing at it and blaming it for dying one too many times. 

Healmyaz is now fifty two and Finn is psyched, which means he’ll be bringing lunch tomorrow.

Rey logs in as Clara and it’s almost as if Ezra remembered where she logged out, being right there when she materializes in the game. 

Ezra: There she is! Ready to go? 

Clara: Yep! 

Ezra emotes a smile and mounts up on his blue Netherwing. Sure it’s from the Burning Crusade, but he admitted to liking sharks, and the model looked too aquatic to pass up. 

Rey mounts on her firebird: Ashes Of Al’ar, turning heads as she always has, flying after him.

Rey’s phone goes off and it’s Finn. She grins before reaching for it. 

Clara: I’m on follow, Ez.

Ezra: K. 

He figures she’s getting her headset ready as she always does when she follows him. 

Rey calls Finn after reading his text. 

“First, thank you for this. Fifty two, that’s nuts... but can you please tell me who the hell Finalizer is and why he’s asking me about my feet?” he asks. 

“Oh, some mage followed me around all day. He got a few levels out of it. And I whined at him about my feet hurting from standing all day.”

“What happened to your chair?” 

“Well...”

“Rey, you did not rage fit, right?” 

“I’m not a child, Finn.”

“What did you do then?”

“I wanted to sit higher and broke the lever. I’m basically sitting in the basement now.”

When Finn starts giggling he huffs a “he” then another one, until he’s full on giggling into silence. Which is exactly what’s happening now. 

“In the basement?”

“You sit on it,” she adds, “I’m pretty sure it’s past broken. It could pass as a scooter now.”

Silence. 

She’s pretty sure Finn can’t breathe, so she cuts him off saying she’ll talk to him in the game. “Be nice to Nooberizer, okay?”

“Who?!”

“Finalizer...”

“You’ll catch me up tomorrow right?” Finn hopes.

“Yep! I have to—“

“Listen to your boyfriend?”

Rey hangs up on him. She can’t take the teasing, and Finn is relentless. 

Healmyaz messages her in the game offering a sorry.

Clara: No you aren’t.

Clara: He’s not my boyfriend. Though he did try a pet name before.

The second message doesn’t seem to get a reaction from Finn, which is odd. Maybe he got caught up with the wackos in Supremacy. It didn’t matter though, she was getting ready for some of the best game play of the night, and it wasn’t just because of Ezra. Rebel Fire is popping in. It’s all friendly hellos and asking for pots and flasks from the guild banks before being summoned in. 

The Crucible of Storms is tonight’s target. As they arrive Clara is pulled into the discord channel, ready to listen. She doesn’t usually speak through the microphone, focusing typing out all of her responses to the group. Rey figures this way she doesn’t have to get into the fact that she is a woman. Not that she was worried about it, but something about exploiting her sex felt wrong online. Hera and Satine were connected to Ezra’s circle in real life, and she was not. 

Instead, it was time to it. They zone in, everyone is buffed, and ready for the first of the pulls. Ezra lines up with Kanan looking to split the group taking the higher level elite monster out of range if the stuns making it eased to fly through the raid all the way up into the first boss. 

Rey sets her Do Not Disturb message to go along with the Deadly Bods Mods that count down the times and ping the computer’s screen to get people in and out of range of waves of enraging times. Other bosses exploited magic which made the raid group stay in motion, dodging blizzard spells and not standing in the fire that ticks off thousands of health points the longer said character stands in it. 

Unless otherwise known, they’re were just too many strategies to have to keep up with which made raiding easier with newer recruits. Rey wasn’t new to the game at all, she knew her role as a hunter. She knew to take her target off of the boss when the adds came out. She knew how to burn them quickly to restart on the boss, but the DBM just made game play smoother. 

Rey flicks on her twitch stream, letting people watch Clara own with Darksaber Raiders and Rebel Fire, without, of course, the addition of her webcam or microphone turned on. She avoided connecting fully to the internet like the plague, but was just fine with sharing what Clara could do on an open stage. Instead she pumps the music she’s listening to through the feed, continuing on with her group. 

Rey sits back with the ranged group just about ready to pull when Healmyaz starts telling her he dinged. 

Clara: Sweet. 

Healmyaz: I’m shooting for seventy tonight. 

Clara: Shoot for 120. 

The fight starts and she’s jamming her keyboard for shots, but nothing is happening. Rey looks everywhere and curses at the text box when she finds it. Numbers 2,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,4,2,5 show up in pink in response to Healmyaz. Rey curses again seeing her name at the bottom of the DPS count. She hits enter and gets right back into the fight. 

Ezra: What happened there, Clara?

Clara: DND: Fighting boss. 

Clara: Text stuck in window. 

Rex: That’s what they all say. You’re just jealous!

Rxx: Of me! Because let’s face it, I’m better than all of you. 

Hera: Heal yourself then, napkin. 

Rxx: That’s banquet hall napkin to you. 

Rxx’s health drops to nothing and he goes running behind Clara to get out of range of the next blast. 

Hera: You were saying?

Healmyaz: I found out who Finalizer is. 

Rey doesn’t see this as bickering continues through the raid. It’s all in good fun until Ezra misses the achievement. The guy is crazy about his achievements, actually yelling at his brothers for it. To save face she turns off the stream as he hollers “What the f—-!” 

They were literally within seconds of taking down the last boss this time. Rey was sure he had a cooler head but rage fitted about it, taking this as her chance to leave. It was her fault wasn’t it? The loot wasn’t specifically important to her. If she though about it, it was just some code. If she really wanted it she could Photoshop it onto a screenshot, but the trouble really wasn’t worth it. 

Instead she checks up with Finn asking him where he is. 

Clara: Hey.

Healmyaz: Hey. 

Clara: You want to run anything?

Healmyaz: You’re done already?

Clara: Yeah... we were goofing off too much and Ez lost his cool. I think I’m better off hanging with you right now.

Healmyaz: K! Cool ;)

Finn sends Rey an invite to his party, which was a usual thing. They could type to each other and not worry about accidentally replying to anyone. 

Healmyaz: I got to 61! 

Clara: Great. Let’s hit the instances. Pop out another few tonight before I pass out. 

Healmyaz: Oh, excuse me princess, am I interrupting your beauty sleep?

Clara: Why don’t you ride with me? I promise I won’t drop you.

Healmyaz: Alright, alright. You want to get summoned?

Clara: Don’t you need two people for that?

Healmyaz: Yeah your buddy is here. 

Rey has to think about what he means and then he’s in the group. Nooberizer. Perfect. Well, maybe he can see what real kiting is. Maybe he needed to see it from an expert. 

Clara: Hi Finalizer.

Finalizer: Hi.

Clara: Not so talkative now, eh?

Finalizer: Do I know you?

Healmyaz: She played for me earlier. She’s leveling my character while I’m at work and can’t. 

Finalizer: Oh. 

Finalizer: Fuck. 

The mage’s health bar shows being stunned and dropped. All at once he’s dead. Next Finn’s character goes down. 

Clara: Run back, don’t res. I’m almost there.

Rey’s character focused her professions on mining and engineering for the contraptions. One of her favorites was the parachute. She used those for sneaking up on unsuspecting alliance members. Player versus player is her favorite part of the game on the open world. Sneaking up on them made her so happy. Usually it would only take one or two shots and she’d own them, until they’d gang up on her with their mains. 

Clara: I’m here.

She clicks off her mount falling close to the bridge in the Hellfire Citadel. She’s able to target them, hitting every cool down while she was falling. 

Healmyaz: REY!!!

Seconds before she lands in front of them she presses the parachute making her landing nice and easy.

Healmyaz: You always cut it so close!

Finalizer: You’re. The. Clara?

Finalizer: My Clara?


End file.
